Mumbai FC coach Khalid Jamil was not too pleased with the outcome of the goalless draw with East Bengal, Kolkata in a second round match of the 2015-2016 AIFF Hero I-League football tournament, and to be played at the Cooperage ground on Sunday evening. This was the second straight draw after playing out a 0-0 draw with Shillong Lajong in the opening match last Sunday. This was the first draw for East Bengal who had started with a 3-1 win against Sporting Clube de Goa in the first outing.
Mumbai FC striker Jayesh Rane (left) is challenged by East Bengal midfielder Bikash Jairu, during their second round I-League match .
The coach was satisfied with the performance of his players but rued their lack of finishing. “We played well, especially in the first half and had quite a few chances, from set-pieces, but failed to captalise them. That proved costly for us,” he said during the post-match press conference.
East Bengal coach Biswajit Bhattacharya felt that it was a fair result. “I am happy with the performance of the boys. After struggling in the first half we did well to come back and dominate the match in the second half and had our chances,” he stated.
Earlier the home team started off on an attacking mode with coach Khalid Jamil started with Jayesh Rane in place of Asif Kottayil and he combined with Sushil Kumar Singh and midfielder Steven Dias on the right flank. Skipper Taisuke Matsugae and Izumi Arata along with Eric Brown on the left struck a good understanding made a series of threatening forays deep inside the rival territory.
The Mumbai outfit who were dominant from the start forced three corners inside the opening five minutes and came agonizing close to finding the net. Later Brown with a snap left footer tested the rival goalkeeper Rehnesh T.P., who, however, proved equal to the task deflecting the ball for a corner in the 18th minute. Six minutes later, Brown was unlucky as his deft free-kick from the right edge of the box came back off the near upright. Brown picked up the rebound and lobbed across for Pratik Chowdhary who was completely off the mark.
Continuing to force the pace, Mumbai from a neat free flowing move between Taisuke, Arata and Sushil, they tore open the East Bengal defence. But Sushil messed it up as he was unable to put the ball into the path of Arata who had moved forward in anticipation of finding the net in the 38th minute.
However, after the change of ends, the visitors changed tactics by playing more aggressively and turned things around. They did the bulk of the attacking and had the better of chances to dominate the second session. In the 53rd minute Mumbai FC defender Pratik Chowadhary saved his team with a timely tackle to deny Sanju Pradhan who was unmarked inside the penalty area. Pradhan was again guilty of making a hash with another chance from close when he hastily fired wide mush to the dismay of his teammates in the 61st minute.
Mumbai FC survived another scare but goalkeeper Pawan Kumar with a fine divining effort pushed away Dong-Hyun Do’s firm header off Bikash Jairu’s cross from the right in the 71stminute.
In the remaining period both teams managed to create some half chances and were forced to settle for a division of two points.